The drug war is not working Essay Example for Free

The dose strugglefargon is not working Es check outThat is certainly legitimate if we assume, as he does, that the subprogram of the medicine war is to induce Americans to consume only approved medicates. But as the war wears on, we cod to wonder what its purposes actually are. If its purpose is to make criminals out of wizard in three African-American males, it has succeeded. If its purpose is to create one of the highest offense rates in the world and thus to provide permanent fodder for demagogues who decry crime and promise to do some(a)thing about it it is achieving that end. If its purpose is de facto repeal of the Bill of Rights, victory is well in sight. If its purpose is to transfer individual freedom to the centimeral government, it is carrying that off as well as any of our documentary wars did. If its purpose is to destroy our inner cities by making them war zones, triumph is near. Most of the results of the drug war, of which the essayists hither complai n, were widely observed during alcohol prohibition. Everyone should take known that the same fate would follow if the Prohibition approach were merely transferred to different drugs.It has been clear for over a decade that Milton Friedmans warnings about Prohibition redux name been borne out (see his Prohibition and Drugs, Newsweek, May 1, 1972). At some point, the consequences of a social policy become so palpable that deliberate continuation of the policy incorporates those consequences into the policy. We are near if not past that point with drug prohibition. For forty years following the repeal of alcohol prohibition, we treated drug prohibition as we did opposite laws against vice we didnt take it very seriously.As we were extricating ourselves from the Vietnam War, however, Ric rough Nixon declared all-out global war on the drug menace, and the militarization of the problem began. After Ronald Reagan redeclared that war, and George Bush did the same, we had a drug-war wor k out that was 1,000 times what it was when Nixon first discovered the recent enemy. The objectives of the drug war are obscured in order to prevent evaluation. A common claim, for example, is that prohibition is persona of the nations effort to prevent serious crime. Bill Clintons drug czar, Dr.Lee Brown, testified before Congress Drugs especially addictive, hardcore drug use are behind much of the crime we see on our streets today, both those crimes attached by users to finance their lifestyles and those committed by traffickers and dealers fighting for territory and turf. . . . Moreover, there is a level of dread in our communities that is, I believe, unprecedented in our story . . . If these remarks had been preceded by two words, Prohibition of, the statement would soak up been correct, and the political reverberations would arrive at been deafening.Instead, Dr.Brown implied that drug consumption is by itself responsible for turf wars and the other enumerated evils, an implication which he and every other drug warrior know is false. The only possibility more daunting than that our leaders are dissembling is that they energy actually believe the nonsense they purvey. I have little to add to the inscription of drug-war casualties in the other essays assembled here. I do, however, see another angle of entry for Mr. Buckleys efforts at quantification. I have argued elsewhere that the drug war is responsible for at least half of our serious crime.A plug-in of experts consulted by U. S. News World Report put the annual dollar cost of Americas crime at $674 billion. Half of that, $337 billion, was the total federal budget as recently as 1975. The crime costs of drug prohibition alone may equal 150 per cent of the entire federal welfare budget for 1995. I also think Mr. Buckley understates the nonquantifiable loss of what he quaintly refers to as amenities. Not only is it most suicidal to walk alone in Central Park at night, it is impossible in se ctions of some cities safely to leave ones home, or to remain there.Some Americans sleep in their bathtubs hoping they are bullet- make. Prohibition-generated violence is destroying immense sections of American cities. We can have our drug war or we can have healthy cities we cannot have both. In this collection of essays, we critics have focused on the costs of the drug war. The warriors could justly complain if we failed to hang the benefits. So lets take a look at the benefit side of the equation. Were it not for the drug war, the prohibitionists say, we might be a nation of zombies.The DEA pulled the figure of 60 million from the sky thats how many cocaine users they say we would have if it werent for prohibition. Joseph Califanos colleague at the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Dr. Herbert Kleber, a former protagonist to William Bennett, puts the number of cocaine users after repeal at a more modest 20 to 25 million. In contrast, government surveys suggest that only about 3 million Americans currently use cocaine even occasionally and fewer than 500,000 use it weekly.The prohibitionists scenarios have no basis either in our history or in other cultures. In many countries, heroin and cocaine are cheap and at least de facto legal. Mexico is awash in cheap drugs, yet our own State Department says that Mexico does not have a serious drug problem. Neither cocaine nor heroin is habitually consumed by more than a small fraction of the residents of any country in the world. There is no reason to suppose that Americans would be the single exception.Lee Brown used to rely on alcohol prohibition as proof that legalization would addict the nation, asserting that alcohol consumption shot straight up when Prohibition was repealed. He no longer claims that, it having been pointed out to him that alcohol consumption increased only about 25 per cent in the years following repeal. Yet even assuming, contrary to that experience, that ingestion of currently ille gal drugs would two-bagger or triple following repeal, preventing such increased consumption still cannot be counted a true benefit of drug prohibition.After repeal, the drugs would be regulated their purity and potency would be disclosed on the package, as Mr. Buckley points out, together with appropriate warnings. Deaths from overdoses and toxic reactions would be reduced, not increased. Moreover, as Richard Cowan has explained (NR, How the Narcs Created Crack, Dec. 5, 1986), the drugs consumed after repeal would be less potent than those ingested under prohibition. Before alcohol prohibition, we were a nation of beer drinkers. Prohibition pushed us toward hard liquor, a habit from which we are still recovering.Before the Harrison Act, many Americans took their cocaine in highly reduce forms, such as Coca-Cola. We would also end the cruel practices described by Ethan Nadelmann wherein we deny pain medication to those who need it, preclude the medical use of marijuana, and compe l drug users to share needles and thus to spread sulphurous diseases. The proportion of users who would consume the drugs without substantial health or other problems would be greatly increased. In compare to any plausible post-repeal scenario, therefore, there simply are no health benefits achieved by prohibition.